Reprinted from the HARVARD EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, Vol. 15, No. 4, October, 1945

r Domingo Sarmiento: the Schoolmaster President­Citizen of the New World

BY LEONARD S. KENWORTHY

Mr. Kenworthy is a graduate of Earlham and Columbia Universi­ties, and has done graduate work at Harvard. He is at present asso­ciated with the Civilian Public Service Program at Yale Univer­sity, while on leave as head of the Social Studies Department of Friends' Central School, Over­brook, Pennsylvania. His appre­oatwn and understanding of democratic teaching are evident in this biographical study of a great American.

THREE days are now celebrated as holidays in each of the twenty-one member nations of the Pan-American Union. One of these is October I2 or Columbus Day. Another is April 14 or Pan-American Day. The third is September II or Teacher's Day.

This third international holiday was decided upon at a conference of Ministers and Directors of Education of the American Republics, held in Panama in I943· and the date decided upon was one of particular signifi­cance, for it was on September II,

I888, that Domingo Faustino Sarmi­ento died in· Asuncion, Paraguay. Even then he was recognized as a figure of international importance. As his funeral train wound its way over the route from Paraguay back

./ 7 to his native Argentina, the body of this outstanding Pan-American was wrapped in the flags of the four na­tions with which he had been most

intimately associated. These were Argentina, the land in which he · had been born and of which he had later become President; Chile, the nation to which he had fled in his early years and where he had made his first nota­ble contributions to education; Para­guay, the country with which he had brought about a just peace after years of hostility and war; and Uruguay, a nation where his ideas had found particularly fertile soil and a recep­tive climate, and had flourished. There might have been other flags, especially that of the United States, where he spent several years as a visi­tor and later as a Minister from Argentina.

An arresting person - this Sarmi­ento, with his massive head and port­ly body, his enormous energy and his indomitable will. In a life of seventy­seven years he had been a political revolutionary, a social pioneer, one of the most talented of South Ameri­can literary figures, an educator

• extraordinaire1 a political statesman, and one of the earliest advocates of the Good Neighbor policy.

His birth belied all that has just been said about him. Out on the ex­treme edge of the pampas and on the eastern slope of the Andes, in the province of San Juan, he was born on February I4, I8II, just a year after Argentina had declared its inde­pendence from Spain. Those were revolutionary pioneer days in that part of the world, and his father was off much of the time at war. It was

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his mother who raised him and who supported the Sarmiento family.

Domingo was raised in simple sur­roundings, verging on poverty. His family had once owned a large part of the valley, but they had lost it through sickness and other misfor­tunes. Dona Paula could have re­ceived help from rich relatives, but she spurned it. Better to be poor and independent than comfortable and dependent upon others. So they lived in their mud-walled hut made with sun-dried brick, and enjoyed the gar­den nearby, the three orange trees in the yard, and the geese in the pool by the house. Day after day Dona Paula put her spinning wheel out un­der the fig tree and wove the woolen cloth for friars' and monks' robes, earning about $6 a week for her ef­forts. With the savings from this hard-earned toil, she was able even­tually to pay for their tiny two room house and support her family of four boys and four girls. Quite a feat for anyone except a determined lady like her!

Day by day Domingo trudged off to school until he had accumulated a record of nine years of school with­out missing a day. Books were not plentiful, but he devoured the few he laid his hands on. One of these was The Life of Benjamin Franklin. This particular volume thrilled him. Later on he wrote of it, "No book has ever done me more good .... I felt myself to be Franklin and why not? I was poor like him; I studied like him, and following in his footstep, I might one day come, like him, to be a doc­tor ad honorem and make myself a place in letters and American poli­tics." Such stories could greatly influ-

ence other children, Sarmiento said, and therefore "The Life of Franklin should be in every primary school. His example is so inspiring, the career he ran so glorious that there would not be a boy at all well inclined who would not try to be a little Franklin."

This emulation of Benjamin Franklin some would call conceit. Others would call it confidence. All through his life people who liked him called him confident, assured, poised, certain. Those who tangled with him called him conceited, egotistical, proud, contemptible. Yet it was this early belief in his own talent which helped him to surmount seemingly insuperable obstacles and carried him through a long period of tumult and rebellion, both personal and national.

He framed it in this way, "A strange phenomenon. Favored nei­ther by nature nor fortune, absorbed from youth in an ideal which had made me live within myself, disre­garding not only the pleasures, but even the conventional forms of civil­ized life, from my first steps in life I have felt almost continuously at my side a woman, attracted I know not by what mystery, a woman who said to me, with a caress, 'Forward, you will succeed.' " And he did.

In these early years he also ac­quired a feeling of the equality of everyone. Some of this came, he thought, from the fact that everyone was expected to address everyone else by the title of Sefior, regardless of race or economic social posltwn. Probably some of his revolutionary outlook came, too, from Don Ignacio Rodriguez, the head of the school which he attended. Rodriguez was interested in the latest developments

OCTOBER 1945] DOMINGO SARMIENTO

in education, read English, and took an especial interest in his pupils. He was fond of Sarmiento, whom he called "a most troublesome and vocif­erous reader."

The determination to follow in the foosteps of Franklin, and the condi­tions at home, made Domingo differ­ent from other children, and he suf­fered because of his uniqueness. The chief difference was his dislike of games as a waste of time and effort. There were more important things to do, he felt. Then, too, he was a "book-worm," delv~ng into the Bible or the Life of Cicero or whatever oth­er books he could find and borrow. That did not make for popularity, either.

For a time it looked as if he might become a priest, the most respected profession in the country. But when he went to the seminary to prepare for the priesthood, several of the teachers were gone and conditions were such that he did not remain. At fifteen he was already teaching pu­pils older than himself, but that was only temporary. At sixteen lle began to work in the village store, but his life work was not to be there. On the side he kept writing essays, start­ed a literary society, and then opened a school.

Then his troubles began, those troubles which were to change his life so abruptly. Rosas was dictator of Argentina at the time and a despot according to Sarmiento-and many others. So when Domingo was or­dered to close his shop and mount guard, he refused, stating that he would not serve under those "with which we are oppressed."

Across the Andes he fled to Chile

in order to escape retaliation for his treasonable action. From then on he shuttled back and forth between Argentina and Chile for years, with the changes in government in his na­tive land. Most of the time he spent in Chile, however.

For a while he taught school in Santa Rosa de los Andes, then he ran an eating house in Procuro, next he became a clerk in Valparaiso, and then he worked in the Majordono mine in Chanarcillo.

All this time he was trying to satis­fy his intellectual hunger. While working in the mines, he tried each day to read one of Walter Scott's great novels. A little later he tried to translate one of these into Spanish so that others might enjoy the work of this great English novelist. He also worked on languages, picking up a good knowledge of several of them. At eighteen years of age he acquired his knowledge of French, at twenty­two English, at twenty-six Italian, and at thirty-one Portuguese. He read all these well, but spoke them only fairly well, as he had learned some of them from books and had consequently given them his own accent!

His first real contribution to edu­cation came in 1839 when he was twenty-eight years old. It was then that he founded a school for girls in San Juan, a dangerously radical step in Argentina and many other parts of the world. The same year he started a newspaper, El Zonda) to combat tyrannical ideas and promote a spirit of democracy. But the time was not yet ripe for such reforms. Again he became embroiled in trouble and had to flee to Chile. Before he left his

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native land, he declared that "Las ideas no se degiiellan" -ideas cannot be throttled-a statement which he was later to help prove true.

Back in Chile, his adopted home, he plunged into journalism, found­ing El National in Santiago and writ­ing editorials and occasionally arti­cles for El Mercurio in Valparaiso . "Freedom of worship, civil marriages and pacifism were among the social ideals which he preached, together with an insistence that never relaxed on the necessity of education."

All these years he had been mull­ing over in his mind the most effec­tive way to educate the poor, illiterate masses of his own and other nations, convinced that progress would never come until the masses became edu­cated. The years were slipping by and he must act, but only in the most efficient manner. One dare not waste those previous possessions of time and energy. How could he best achieve his purpose?

The answer, he believed, was to found a training school for teachers in Santiago. By influencing a few of them he could indirectly influence large numbers of people. So, in 1842, he founded the first teacher-training school in South America, a landmark in the cultural development of a continent.

The next year he joined the fac­ulty of the University of Chile and started to work on a school reader which was published two years later and was used by several generations of school children.

Then Facundo appeared. It came out first in daily installments in the newspaper, El Progreso. Soon it was on the presses as a book and a book

much read and much more discussed, -"the best known work in Argen­tina's literature," "perhaps the most representative volume ever produced in the southern continent."

It was a great novel, a literary event. Yet it was more than that. It was a partially concealed bombshell. When one opened the covers of the book, it did not burst. But as one read on, it (or the reader) grew warmer and warmer until the explo­sion came. What was the inflamma­tory substance which Sarmiento had scattered over the pages as he penned the book?

The first section deals with the life of a cowboy on the planes of Argen­tina, and portrays the pride of the rancher in his supposed superiority over the city man. The second sec­tion describes Juan Facundo Quiro­ga, the chieftain of the San Juan region where Sarmiento had lived. In him were embodied the worst traits of the oppressor, forcing his subjects back into the barbarism from which they are beginning to emerge. Education is neglected, Christianity reverts to superstition, and civilization yields to barbarism. Here is feudal society at its worst. Here is the struggle between country and city.

And the remedies Sarmiento sug­gests? Education and immigTation.

The book catapulted the author to fame. Sarmiento was speedily dis­patched to Europe to study the edu­cational methods and systems there. He spent the year 1845 in Uruguay and Brazil, before setting sail for France, the Balearic Islands, and Algiers, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Prussia, and back to France. Every-

OCTOBER 1945) DOMINGO SARMIENTO

where during these next two years he was observing schools, exammmg textbooks, meeting teachers and spe­cialists in various areas of education, and testing his ideas by the experi­ence of these experts. He had ex­pected to gain much from such a con­tinental tour, but he was disappoint­ed until he reached England and chanced to discover the Seventh An­nual Report of Horace Mann, who had helped to establish the first state­wide system of free, public schools, in Massachusetts. Here was a man and a state government doing exactly what Sarmiento had dreamed of do­ing. "After this important work fell into my hands," he said, "I had a fixed point to which to direct my­self. . "

He hurried on to the United States and on to West Newton, Massachusetts, for two memorable days with Horace Mann, the pioneer in primary education. They had no common language, so Mrs. Mann and Sarmiento spoke in French and she served as interpreter for them both.

This was a mountain-top experi­ence and Sarmiento never recovered from the visit. He became an ardent admirer of Mann and attempted to transplant his ideas in Chile and Argentina. He compared himself to a bird in passage which picks up seeds and transports them to other lands. This feeling of admiration was mutual. Mann grasped the full sig­nificance of Sarmiento's visit and ar­ranged for him to meet Longfellow, Emerson, Channing, and other out­standing figures in the States, and to lecture at the American Institute of Instruction. He also arranged his visit

to the University of Michigan, where he received an honorary degree.

After a trip to the Middle West and a steamboat ride down the Mississippi, Sarmiento returned to Chile to give an accounting of his educational expedition. The ideas he had formulated on this trip abroad were collected now and pub­lished in a volume called De la Edu­caci6n Popular. Later that same year he published an account of his im­pressions of these countries in a travel book entitled Viajes Par Europa) Africa) y America.

Soon the opposition to Rosas in Argentina had organized itself in an attempt to overthrow the dictator, and Sarmiento hastened to join the forces opposing Rosas. At Monte Caserva, near Buenos Aires, in 1852, he took part in the battle which brought about the overthrow of this despot. Even then Sarmiento was not welcome in Argentina, for he could not remain under ·Rosas' suc­cessors, Urquiza. Back he went to Chile to found and edit MonitoT las escuelas primarias) a journal for the Chilean department of education.

By 1855 Argentinian politics was calmer and Sarmiento moved to Buenos Aires to edit El Nacional. This was an important task, but there was more pressing work for which no one was as well qualified as he. Had he not founded the first normal school on the continent? Had he not become an authority on the educa­tional systems of the United States and several European countries? Why should he not be used to help im­prove the educational system of Argentina?

Soon he became head of the

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schools of Buenos Aires and from 1860-1864 Minister of Public Instruc­tion of the nation, a department of the federal government which he had helped establish in 1859 while serv­ing as Senator. As would be expect­ed, he energetically set to work to write and translate textbooks and to raise the meager appropriations for schools and teachers.

A man of his manifold interests and abilities was in great demand now, and for the next three years he served as a foreign representative, in Chile and Peru, and then in the United States. His personal friend, Bartolome Mitre, was president and it was he who sent Sarmiento as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to the States. After a brief visit with Mrs. Mann, he locat­ed in New York City, as his work was to be more commercial and cultural than diplomatic. Back in the States once more, he became confirmed in his high opinion of this rapidly ad­vancing nation. He was impressed with its vitality and imagination. Most of all the West struck him. Here, he wrote, "are attempted things that seem superhuman, inconceiva­ble, absurd . ... " The importance of education was indelibly stamped up­on his mind and he took voluminous notes for a later volume, on The Schools, Basis of Prosperity in the Republic of the United States. To the people of Argentina he declared upon his return, "I come from a country where education is every­thing, where education has succeeded in establishing true democracy, mak­ing races and classes equal."

He· became almost odious at times in his praise of the States. In one

such statement he declared that "South America is falling behind and will lose its God-given mission as part of modern civilization. Let us not hold up the United States in its for­ward march; that is what some are proposing to do. Let us overtake the United States. Let us be America, as the sea is the ocean. Let us be the United States."

In his more sober moments, he also saw the faults in the States. He warned against such rapid immigra­tion without regard to selection or assimilation. He viewed with alarm the racial conflict being bitterly waged in those post-Civil War days, and warned that "against the violence and injustice of the Yankees there is no appeal on this earth." So he mixed criticism with his lavish praise of this northern neighbor.

While he was in the United States, his friends in Argentina were schem­ing against him, or for him, which­ever way you view it. In an election which is said to have been "the freest and most peaceful held in the repub­lic," he was chosen President. He had not sought the office; the office had sought him. On Columbus Day, October 12, 1868, he was inaugurated President of the land from which he had fled so many years ago and from which he had been an exile so long. What strange developments can oc­cur in a nation 's life or in the lives of its citizens over a period of years!

His six years as President were fraught with trouble. There were Indian raids, uprisings in the prov­inces, floods, a drought which killed 2,ooo,ooo head of cattle, and a yellow fever epidemic in Buenos Aires which killed 13,500 people, or 8% of

OCTOBER 1945] DOMINGO SARMIENTO

the population 'in forty-five days. But it was an administration which

helped push Argentine far ahead to the important position she occupies today in world affairs. During this term a railroad was built from Rosa­rio to Cordoba, plans were made for a national bank, a telegraph system was established, immigration was en­couraged, 1 ,ooo primary schools were built and a National College estab­lished in Buenos Aires and one in each province. From the United States Sarmiento brought Benjamin Gould to build the first astronomical observatory in South America and with the help of Mrs. Mann he ar­ranged for a large group of teachers to come to Argentina to organize the normal schools.

As if this were not enough to accomplish, Sarmiento supervised the work of building new ports and dredging the rivers, as well as organ­izing the first national census. The disastrous war with Paraguay was concluded and Sarmiento insisted that it should be ended without the addition of an inch of territory to Argentina. Historians agree that he "concluded as honorable a peace with Paraguay as was ever negotiated."

His was an administration of so­cial, economic, and cultural progress.

Many men retire from active life after such a period of strenuous activity. But not Sarmiento. His life must count in the development of his native land and the years remaining were years in which he could accom­plish much, he hoped.

A rapid review of the positions he held will give an idea of his active life. In 1874 he was elected Senator from the Province of San ] uan, in

187 5 he became director-general of the schools in the Province of Buenos Aires, in 1877 he was appointed Minister of the Interior. The year 1881 found him acting as General Superintendent of the Schools of Argentina, and 1884 found him in Chile promoting the official transla­tion of foreign books.

Meanwhile he was busy with his pen. When the national Congress ordered the official publication of his complete works in 1884, there were fifty-two volumes. A few only were outstanding. Facundo heads the list. The Life of Horace Mann and The Life of A braham L incoln were good, his Conflict and Harmony of Races in America (referred to sometimes as Facundo "grown old") is also widely read even today. His travelogues in book form were also very popular.

Declining health finally caused him to move to Asuncion, Paraguay, in 1887, for the milder climate it afford­ed. There, on September 11, 1888, he died.

People have characterized him and his contributions to the world in dif­ferent ways, yet all are agreed upon his greatness. Summarizing A Cen­tury of Latin American Thought, the author refers to the Argentinian in this way, "Sarmiento was the greatest of all, the most thoroughly Argentine, in spite of himself." An­other writer has called him "the most powerful brain America has pro­duced." Upon his death the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay assert­ed that "Argentina has lost one of its most eminent sons and America a noble apostle of liberty. Men like Sarmiento honor their country and are the glory of mankind."

HARVARD EDUCATIONAL REVIEW (VOL. XV, N0.4

Commemorating the 1ooth anni­versary of his birth, Argentina pub­lished a special stamp with a bust of Sarmiento, and struck off a medal asserting that "Sarmiento was more than a citizen of Argentina, he was a citizen of the New World, called America."

And now, in the 194o's, his death is commemorated throughout the twenty-four nations of the Pan-Amer­ican Union as the day on which to honor teachers-Teacher's Day. No more fitting tribute could possibly have been devised for this teacher of teachers-Domingo Faustino Sarmien­to - the Schoolmaster President of Argentina.

REFERENCES

Berutti, Jose J., "Sarmiento," Bulletin of the Pan-American Union, 72: pp. 505-512, September, 1938.

Chapin, Clara Cutler, "Sarmiento the Teacher," Bulletin of the Pan-Ameri­can Union, 78: pp. 481-486, Septem­ber, 1944.

Crawford, Rey, A Century of Latin-

American Thought. Camb~idge: Har­vard University Press, 1944, pp. 37-51.

Davis, Harold E., Makers of Democracy in Latin America. Washington, D. C.: Inter-American Bibliograph­ical and Library Association, 1945, PP· 52-55·

Lansing, Marion, Liberators and Heroes of South America. Boston: L. C. Page and Co., 1940, pp. 297-312.

Nichols, Madaline W., Sarmiento: A Chronicle of Inter-American Friend­ship. Washington, D. C.: The Author, (303 B Street, S.E. ), 1940, 81 pp.

Pan- American Union, Pan- American Patriots Series, No. 13, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento of A rgentina. Washington, D. C., 5 pp.

Stewart, Watt, and French, William Marshall, "The Influence of Horace Mann on the Educational Ideas of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento," His· panic- American Histo1·ical Review, 20: pp. 12-13, February, 1940.

Stewart, Watt, and Peterson, Harold F., Builders of Latin America. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1942, PP· 232-244. Other materials may be obtained by

writing the U. S. Office of Education, Washington, D. C.

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